Genesis 16:3 - Exposition

Crooked ways, or marrying with Hagar.

I. THE SPECIOUS PROPOSAL .

1. The author of it; Sarai, the wife of Abram, a daughter of the faith, the mistress of a household. To the first, the suggestion referred to in the narrative should have been impossible; in the second, it was inconsistent; while, proceeding from the third, it was calculated to be harmful.

2. The wickedness of it. It was

3. The extenuations of it.

II. THE SINFUL COMPLIANCE . "Abram hearkened unto the voice of Sarai."

1. Deliberately . He was not surprised into this secondary marriage with the Egyptian maiden. The scheme of Sarai appears to have been talked over between them; and if at first he had scruples in complying with her proposition, they were eventually overcome.

2. Inconsiderately . That is, the ulterior consequences were not taken into account in assenting to this device for the anticipation of the promised seed; only its immediate feasibility and superficial recommendations. So men are morally shortsighted, and cannot see afar off when confronted by some sweet temptation. Had Abram only dimly discerned the outcome of Sarai's counsel, he would have seen that the thing was not of God. A perception of the coming whirlwind would often hinder the sowing of the wind.

3. Inexcusably . Though not dictated by carnal desire, Abram's acquiescence in Sarai's scheme was far from being faultless. It evinced a want of faith, and, indeed, a want of true spiritual discernment in supposing that what God had promised as a gift of grace could be surreptitiously snatched from his Divine hand in the way proposed, or even by any purely human stratagem; and a want of patience in not calmly waiting for the accomplishment of God's word in God's own time and way.

III. THE SORROWFUL RESULT .

1. Humiliation to Sarai . Elated by the prospect of maternity, the young Egyptian slave-girl despised her mistress; by haughtiness of carriage, perhaps silently discovering contempt for Sarai's sterility, and possibly assuming airs of superiority, as if, in consequence of approaching motherhood, anticipating her displacement from the throne of Abram's love ( Proverbs 30:23 ).

2. Misery to Abram . The womanly nature of Sarai, stung to jealousy by the success of her own plan, and incapable of longer enduring the scornful triumph of a maiden whom her own hands had transformed into a favored rival, with something like vindictive heat turned upon her meek, submissive, and in this matter wholly innocent lord, reproaching him as, if not the cause of her barrenness, at least the patient and half-satisfied witness of her humiliation; she almost called down upon him the judgment of Heaven. To a noble spirit like that of Abram the anguish of Sarai must have been distressing to behold; and the pain which it occasioned must have been intensified when he came to realize the painful dilemma in which he stood between her and Hagar.

3. Oppression to Hagar . Reminding Sarai that Hagar, though a wife to him, was still a maid to her, the patriarch unwisely extended sanction to whatever remedy the heated breast of Sarai might devise. The result was that the favored maiden was at once thrust back into her original condition of servitude, deprived of whatever tokens of honor and affection she had received as Abram's wife, and subjected to injurious treatment at the hands of her incensed mistress and rival, from which she ultimately sought refuge in flight.

Learn —

1. That eminent saints may lapse into grievous sins.

2. That a child of God is specially liable to temptation after seasons of high religious privilege.

3. That the strongest temptations sometimes proceed from the least expected quarters.

4. That trying to anticipate the Divine promise is not an uncommon form of temptation.

5. That when God's people take to crooked ways, nothing but evil can come of it.